For discussion of gamedev matters in general - pretty much anything relating to development of a game. Video or tabletop, whatever.

Myself, I was wondering, would you rather the silent protagonist of an adventure game be referred to as a generic title ("adventurer" etc.), a set name, or a name the player inputs? It's for an idea I have.

If I remember correctly, Earthbound gave the player the choice of naming the party members, or just pressing "Don't Care" and getting names like Ness out of a preset list, which is what I ultimately prefer.

I got MMF2 and started working with Sonic Worlds, but I need to learn some things about adding character actions and a few other things before I can make anything of interest with it.

to answer your question, it is entirely subjective to what role that character plays in the adventure.

a generic title (adventurer) implies the character has an identity that should be shrouded and left for the player to find out, or may also assume the character is one of many and doesn't stand out which can also be used as a device to say something about being unique, and lastly, perhaps implies their role and personality is an npc which would be an interesting concept to toy with.

a set name is usually for an established character in a story that has their own identity, personality, etc that is not connected to the person playing the character.

a player input name can imply a lot of things, it can imply the story or character is extremely different based on the kind of name you give them. it could imply they are a drone full of infinite souls with different names that take turns experiencing the character's life. it can also imply the character is supposed to be you and all of the actions they take are a direct reflection of you and what you'd do in this world as an outsider to it (what undertale did basically.)

or none of this can mean anything and people want to name all their characters like they are pets to watch and experience. like pokemon.

I prefer set names because usually the fans end up universally agreeing to call the character something in particular anyway.

You can give the Pokemon protagonists any name you want, it doesn't stop everyone on the planet from calling them by their real names.

There are ways to compromise though. In For Frogs the Bell Tolls, the main character is always referred to as the Prince of Sable, but you also name him at the start of the game. This way he basically has both a set name and a player name without any conflict or confusion.

NachoThePikachu wrote:I WILL BE AN ADMINISTRATOR, RULING OVER CHAO ISLAND
except it WON'T BE CHAO ISLAND ANYMORE
IT'LL BE BANANA ISLAnD